


who's gonna take you home tonight

by notquiteaghost



Series: team trans dynamite [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Genderfluid Character, M/M, Pre-Slash, Trans Male Character, slow and steady wins the race kids, working up to the actual slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-01-24 15:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1610966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notquiteaghost/pseuds/notquiteaghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"The shot, it's-- It's T. Testosterone. I'm not-- I wasn’t-- My body doesn't make it. Testosterone, it doesn’t make testosterone naturally." Gavin quirks a self-deprecating smile. "It's pretty good at estrogen, though."</em> </p><p>Team Nice (Trans) Dynamite against the world: a sort-of love story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. so tell them all that i'm a work in progress

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNINGS FOR CHAPTER ONE: one interrupted use of the T slur, a pov character experiencing anxiety & having a panic attack, discussion of hormone replacement therapy, casual use of ableist slurs ('canon' typical).** if i missed anything, please tell me!
> 
> title is from 'true trans soul rebel' by against me!, chapter title is from 'work in progress' by the dangerous summer.
> 
> apparently all i write now is fic with trans characters. i'd say i'm sorry, but i'm not.
> 
> **obligatory rpf disclaimer: if your name is mentioned, this fic isn't for you in the slightest, close this tab thanks**

Generally, there aren't rules about language in videos. They swear, they trash talk, they hurl insults like their life depends on it -- it's what they do.

Except for one thing.

"Fucking hell, what are you doing, you look like a trann--"

"Cut that the fuck out."

Ray blinks at Geoff, surprised. Geoff, who has just appeared in the doorway looking thunderous and slightly terrifying.

"That word." Geoff adds. "Or anything like it. Don't fucking say it. You can say any fucking word you like, apart from that. Understood?"

Ray nods, then turns his attention back to the game. Geoff disappears back to wherever the hell he came from.

(Gavin edits the Let's Play that was being recorded. The footage of Geoff's call-out doesn't make the final cut, but Gavin does save it as a separate file in a separate folder titled 'For Later'.)

\---

Gavin has a problem.

"Geoff, Geoff, Geoffrey where the fucking hell are you--"

"He's in that meeting thing for hours, remember?" Michael calls from where he's sat at his desk.

Gavin freezes in the middle of the room, his insides turning to ice. "You have got to be fucking kidding me."

Michael frowns at that. "Dude, are you alright? Did you need him for something?"

"No, no, it's fine, it'll keep, I just-- fuck."

Gavin had forgotten to do his shot last night, had got too caught up in planning a Let's Build and getting wonderously drunk, and now he feels-- jittery. Shaky. Nauseous.

Anxious, that's the word. He feels really fucking anxious.

Michael is still frowning at him. "Gav, are you just gonna stand there and look like you're gonna throw up or what? Because if you're gonna vom, I can get you a bucket. These shoes are brand fucking new, I'm not having you spilling your guts all over them."

"I said it was fine."

"Right, okay, sure. You gonna move then?"

Gavin-- can't. There's a roaring sound in his ears, a lump in his throat, God, maybe he does want that bucket--

"Gavin."

Suddenly, Michael is right there, gripping Gavin's arms, holding Gavin up, which is when Gavin notices his knees have given out from under him. Alright then.

"Gavin, Gavin, hey. Look at me, fucker, c'mon."

Michael's voice is all soft and calming in a way Gavin almost never hears. It's nice. Soothing.

Gavin sucks in a gasping breath. The burning sensation in his lungs he hadn't noticed until just now lessens somewhat. Is he hyperventilating? Is this a panic attack?

Oh, God, this is a panic attack, he's having a panic attack, he’s having a panic attack in front of _Michael_ , fuck, fuck fuck _fuck_ \--

" _Gavin_." Michael's fingers are tracing patterns on Gavin's arms. "It's alright Gav, I promise it's okay, I'm here, I've got you, I'm talking like I'm a fucking romance novel for you and everything, it's alright. Just breathe, that's it, just breathe for me, there we go. You're doing great."

"Could you--" Gavin's voice comes out shaky and vulnerable, so he takes in a deep, shuddering breath and tries again, "Could you do something for me?"

"Sure, dude, whatever you want. You're my boy, remember?"

"Yeah. Yeah." Gavin takes another deep breath, then another, then stutters out, "It's-- needles, I have to take my shot and I can't-- fucking _needles_ , I can't--"

"Geoff usually helps?"

Gavin nods.

"Alright, I can do that." Michael's hand slides down Gavin's arm and wraps around his wrist. "Bathroom good?"

Gavin nods again, and lets Michael lead him away.

\---

"You're not, like, dying or something, are you?"

Gavin's doing his post-shot jig in the bathroom. Michael is leaning against the sink, watching him with a strange look on his face.

"Michael, do you really think I wouldn't tell you if I was _dying_?"

Shrugging, Michael says, "You don't have to tell me shit. Unless, I don't know, you needed bone marrow or a kidney or something."

"Did you just give me blanket permission for your internal organs?"

"Yeah? You're my boy, Gav. Gotta keep you healthy."

And that's as good an opening as any.

"About that." Gavin says.

" _Are_ you dying?"

"I'm not dying, Michael!"

Michael holds up his hands, a gesture of surrender. "Alright, alright! It'd just fucking suck if you were, okay, jeez."

"But-- about the boy thing." Gavin says, then stops, struggling a bit in getting the words out.

Michael raises an eyebrow and gestures for Gavin to go on. Gavin takes a deep breath and gets on with it.

"The shot, it's-- It's T. Testosterone. I'm not-- I wasn’t-- My body doesn't make it. Testosterone, it doesn’t make testosterone naturally." Gavin quirks a self-deprecating smile. "It's pretty good at estrogen, though."

"...Estrogen's the female-- Shit, _Gav_."

Gavin stares at the floor, unable to make himself look up and see Michael's facial expression.

"No wonder Geoff's such a hardass about the T word." Michael breathes. He doesn't sound like he's disgusted, he sounds like he just figured out how to beat the boss after an hour of dying spectacularly, and Gavin doesn't understand.

He looks up. Michael is staring at him, expression one of understanding and-- sympathy? 

Gavin still doesn't understand.

"You don't hate me?"

"Oh my God, _Gavin_ , you dumb fuck, you're my boy. I could never _hate_ you, fucking hell."

"Oh."

Michael rolls his eyes. "Yeah, 'oh'."

"We're good?"

"Yeah, Gav, we're good. Wanna go get lunch? All this emoting has made me fucking hungry."

\---

“I told Michael.” Gavin says, offhandedly over dinner that night, and Geoff and Griffon both freeze.

“Told Michael what?”

“About the, uh. Trans thing.”

“...You forgot to take your shot yesterday, didn’t you.” 

Gavin grimaces, a sudden sense memory of earlier’s panic shooting through his veins. “Yeah. And you were in a meeting thing, so I asked Michael--”

“Do I need to have a word with him?” Geoff says, and Gavin’s chest warms at the protective note in his voice.

“No, no, it’s fine, he was cool, everything’s tip top, I just-- thought you should know?”

“And you’ll let us know if he says anything terrible?”

“I’ll load your shotgun for you and everything.”

Geoff nods, pleased. "Good. Now, I had this idea for a Let's Build..."


	2. a stained-glass cathedral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael's eyes open, stare at the ceiling for a long moment, and then Michael thinks _Fae_.
> 
>  
> 
> Michael rolls over and smothers faer face in the pillow. Fae fucking _hates_ these days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is in no way a precedent for update speed, i just had this chapter mostly written when i posted the first one, the third chapter will probably take like a week. (do not hold me to that i'm but a small anxious bird & it's exams season).
> 
> chapter title is from 'jewelry store' by andrea gibson, and the full quote is: " _[for] every blood hound that ever sucked on her pronoun, like her self-given name was not a stained-glass cathedral_ ".
> 
>  **WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: pov character dealing with dysphoria, references to misgendering, references to a past breakdown caused by dysphoria/misgendering.** again, if i missed anything, please tell me!

Michael has off days sometimes.

Days where he wakes up, looks at the ceiling and thinks _Shit_. Days where his skin doesn't fit right, where all his shoulders are too broad and his hands too big and his voice too deep, where "he" leaves a terrible taste in Michael's mouth.

Days like today.

Michael's eyes open, stare at the ceiling for a long moment, and then Michael thinks _Fae_.

Michael rolls over and smothers faer face in the pillow. Fae fucking _hates_ these days.

It was alright when fae was younger, before Achievement Hunter, but now Michael works all day long with a bunch of cis guys who call faer 'man', 'dude', 'guy', 'he'. Cis guys who fae can never come out to, because fae shudders to think of how they'd react. What they'd say. If they’d still want to work with faer.

Days like these aren't frequent enough to make it a real problem, but fuck, what they lack in frequency they damn well make up for in intensity. Michael is generally not fucked in the head -- though fae knows it's near impossible to be trans in America without picking up at least one mental illness along the way -- but days like these are the kinds of days fae thinks terrible things and has to hide all of the knives from faerself, just to be safe.

Michael looks over at the clock. It's nearly twenty past two in the morning, which, Jesus Christ, fae'd only been asleep for an hour.

And now faer whole body feels wrong, and there is no hope in hell of faer getting back to sleep, God fucking _dammit_.

Fae rolls over so fae's facing away from the clock and contemplates calling in sick at sunrise.

\---

It's a Skype conversation with Dan that clues Gavin in.

Dan: hey so u kno ur theory abt hanging out w/ trans people causing gender crises?

Gavino: Yeah?

Dan: dont tell the internet but

Dan: i think im gonna start using they/them pronouns

Gavino: ???

Dan: nonbinary.org/wiki/Nonbinary_gender

Dan: google is ur best friend

And then Gavin loses several hours to the wiki, a whole new section of the world he'd had no idea existed. There are new words and new pronouns and a whole new way of looking at gender, and it only takes him about an hour to think of Michael.

Michael, who has days where Gavin says, "Hey, man" and Michael flinches like Gavin punched him, days where Gavin loses whole swathes of his everyday language to making sure Michael doesn't flinch like that again, days where something looks different about him. The way he holds himself, maybe.

Michael, who accepted that Gavin is trans without disgust, judgement or any awkward cisgender questions.

 _A person whose gender changes over time_ , Gavin thinks, _genderfluid_.

 _Oh_ , Gavin thinks.

There are other words, a whole dictionary of new terms, and any of them could apply to Michael, Gavin will have to ask him somehow--

It occurs to Gavin that he might be using the wrong pronouns.

He glances at the clock. It's nearly three in the morning on a Tuesday, which is not exactly prime time for emotionally-charged conversation. He'll talk to Michael tomorrow, if he can.

He sends off one last Skype message to Dan ( _If I think a friend might be non-binary, what's a non-dickish way of asking about it?_ ), then shuts off the laptop and goes to bed.

\---

Michael does, eventually, fall back asleep.

And then oversleeps by two hours, because the universe hates faer.

Fae wakes up to faer phone ringing, and fae gropes for it blindly, knocking faer glasses on the floor and answering without looking at the caller ID.

"What?" Fae says.

"Are you home sick or what?" Gavin replies, and Jesus fuck Michael is glad to hear his voice. "Because this is like, the fourth time I've called. I left voicemails. And I texted you. Several times."

Michael makes a vague noise in response, and fae can almost hear Gavin's frown.

"Where you asleep? Did I wake you up? Fuck, _are_ you sick?"

"I feel like shit, yeah." Michael says, because that's not technically a lie. Fae does feel like shit, and it's not faer fault if Gavin jumps to the wrong conclusions as to why.

"Want me to come over?"

Michael blinks. "What? Why?"

"I dunno, to make you soup? Hold your hair back? Do your laundry?"

"And what about your _job_?"

There’s a brief pause, then Gavin shouts, "Hey, Geoff, can I have the day off to play nursemaid for Michael?"

There's another pause, presumably filled with Geoff's reply, and then Gavin says, "Geoff says it's cool. Want me to bring you anything?"

"Um." Michael says, not quite able to believe this is happening. "No?"

"Okay, cool, I'll be there in half an hour."

"Right. Okay." Michael says, and then Gavin hangs up. Michael pulls faer phone away from faer face and stares at the call history for a moment, to reassure faerself that actually did just happen.

Then fae drops faer phone onto the floor and goes back to sleep. Gavin has a key. He can let himself in.

\---

Over the phone, Michael hadn't actually sounded that sick, just sleepy and petulant, but that's not what Gavin told Geoff. Geoff thinks Michael has come down with the flu, and Gavin needs to remember to tell Michael that so their stories match.

Gavin lets himself in to Michael's apartment, because he isn't going to make Michael get out of bed unless he has to. Sure, Michael hadn't sounded _sick_ , but something is still up. Gavin can tell.

"Michael?" Gavin calls, and doesn't get any response. So Michael fell back asleep, okay, Gavin can work with that. God knows Michael probably needs it.

He drops his bag on the sofa and then walks into the kitchen. He's not that great a cook, but comfort food he can do.

He probably has a couple hours before Michael wakes up. Plenty of time.

\---

When Michael blinks awake again, it's to the very familiar sound of someone typing. Fae frowns, then turns faer head and sees Gavin, sat on the floor by Michael's bed with his laptop.

"Morning." Gavin says without looking away from his laptop screen. "I made breakfast."

"You cooked?" Michael asks dubiously.

"I think I can manage full breakfast, Michael." Gavin says.

There has to be some kind of secret British meaning to that sentence, because "I have no idea what you mean by 'full breakfast'."

"You know! Eggs and bacon and hashbrowns and shit."

Michael just stares at him blankly.

Gavin rolls his eyes. “It’s just frying things, okay, it’s not hard. Want me to heat it up for you?”

“Um, sure?”

Gavin sets aside his laptop and bounces to his feet, and doesn’t wait for Michael before walking out the room. After a minute or so, Michael makes faerself get out of bed and follow him.

‘Full breakfast’, it turns out, is a lot of food. There’s sausages, fried egg, baked beans, bacon, mushrooms, fried tomato, and those weird English hash browns. And it looks really good. Michael is pretty surprised.

“I thought you thought I was sick. This is not really the meal you cook for a sick person.”

“You’re not sick.” Gavin says, simply. “At least, not vomiting sick.” 

“Right, okay. Is this your idea of comfort food?”

“No, silly. Comfort food is, like, soup and hot chocolate and shit.”

Michael raises an eyebrow. “Faeces is considered comfort food in Britain?”

“Yes, Michael, it’s a national delicacy. We fry it and then smother it in ketchup.” Gavin says, snarky enough to kill, but he’s grinning triumphantly, like he’s trying to cheer Michael up on purpose. He probably is. He’s a sneaky little shit like that.

They fall into comfortable silence as they both eat - Gavin eating what looks like a sausage sandwich, which Michael isn’t even thinking about - and it’s-- nice. Michael hadn’t thought fae was up for human interaction today, isn’t generally up for human interaction when faer skin feels like it shrunk three sizes when fae was sleeping, but having Gavin here is... weirdly soothing.

He makes for a good distraction, at least.

“Are we gonna talk?” Michael asks, when they're done eating and have ended up back in Michael's room, because like fuck is fae getting out of bed when fae doesn't strictly have to.

"Do you want to talk?"

Which is not the question Michael was expecting.

"Do _you_ want to talk?" Michael counters.

Gavin rolls his eyes. "It's not really me that's important here, is it? You're the one who's having such a shitty day you can't even get out of bed proper."

Except Michael doesn't want to talk about it, in the way that, if possible, fae never wants to talk about emotions, ever, for as long as fae lives, even if you fucking paid faer.

Gavin knows this, of fucking course, so there's only a few seconds of silence before he rolls his eyes and says, "Alright, fine, I'll give you your out." Then he pauses, like he's thinking about it really hard, before adding, "I do know what dysphoria looks like, y'know."

There's a sudden roaring sound in Michael's ears.

"What?"

"I didn't-- I probably would have put it together, if I'd known more about gender, but I-- You know Dan?" Michael nods. "They're having a bit of a gender crisis right now, sent me a heads up and a couple explanatory links, and I did a bit of reading. Well, a lot of reading. There are all these _words_! It's great!"

"I didn't guess you." Michael says, quietly. Something about Gavin softens.

Gavin doesn't really soften all that often. It's just for Michael and sometimes Millie, this way he has of getting all gentle and sappy. It makes Michael want to kiss him-- And fae’s not fucking thinking about that.

"I don't ever try and walk around in a dress on my bad days." Gavin counters. "Which, wow, that must suck, I haven't had to do that in years, I'm mentally projecting a lot of sympathy and solidarity at you right now. Can I hug you? You look like you need a hug."

"Thanks, Gav." Michael means it to sound snarky and sarcastic, but it mostly just ends up fond. Fucking dammit.

And then when Gavin doesn't move, obviously waiting for an actual answer, Michael rolls faer eyes and nods faer head. Gavin's face lights up and he dives onto the bed and wraps himself around Michael like some kind of goddamn octopus.

"You're fucking ridiculous."

"You're comfy."

“I have literally no idea why I put up with you.”

“I just took a day off work to come here and cook you breakfast! What more do you want?”

Michael bites faer lips and hums thoughtfully. “Well, now that you mention it…”

Gavin hits faer.

\---

They don’t do all that much, once the emotional bit’s out the way. Gavin knows from experience that sometimes this is what you need, just a day without any cis people to breathe and rebuild your well-eroded defences. His school attendance took a nosedive the summer of year 10, when he was emerging blinking from his gender crisis into a world of transphobia and misgendering, and even just thinking about those few months makes him want to curl up in a ball in bed and never move again.

“We haven’t talked pronouns, y’know. Or names.”

Michael blinks at him from inside their duvet cocoon (a universal thing, apparently). “You what?”

“I’m not some clueless cishet, Michael, I do actually know how this works. Pronouns and names are easiest to change, and you’re having a laugh if you try to tell me you haven’t got an alternate set in mind.”

“No need to fucking patronise me, Jesus.” Michael grumbles. “But, okay, um. Michael is always cool, and he/his are usually alright? Like, I have way more masculine days than anything else, which is, y’know. Convenient.”

“And if they’re not?”

“...Fae/faers?” Michael’s voice is small and quiet, like fae’s expecting to get shot down, and Gavin gets a sudden and intense urge to find whoever it is that made Michael all fucked up about gender and punch that person in the stomach.

“They’re structured like she/hers, right? Fae’s a dick, I’m sitting in faer bedroom, the bedroom which is faer’s?” Michael looks surprised, but fae nods. Gavin grins. “Got it. I like them, they’re pretty. They suit you.”

“Did you just call me pretty?”

“Yeah? You are pretty. With your eyes and your dimples and shit.”

Michael doesn’t reply, just hides faer face in the duvet. Gavin stares at faer.

“...Are you _blushing_? Oh my God, you totally are, I made you blush!”

Michael reappears to throw a pillow at Gavin. 

“Aw, don’t be like that, it’s cute. You’re very cute, Michael. My cute little-- Hey, can I call you ‘my boy’ still?”

“Not-- Fuck, I don’t know.” Michael reemerges from the duvet with a thoughtful frown on faer face, hair even more mussed up than before. “Maybe? It’s not… It doesn’t feel like misgendering when you say it? Fuck, that was gay, don’t you dare say anything. Gender is fucking _hard_ , okay.”

“Michael, you do not need to tell me that gender is hard.” Gavin says, then hesitates for a moment before continuing, “Did I never mention I basically had a breakdown for the entire last term of year 10?”

“Wait, really?”

“Yep. Didn’t leave the house for a month. Then I started transitioning over the summer and switched schools for year 11, enrolled as a guy.”

“You didn’t have to repeat the grade?”

“You can’t retake years until you start sixth form. It doesn’t matter, though, I didn’t have any exams. But I just-- know what it’s like, yeah? One trans to another.”

“Team Trans Dynamite.”

Gavin laughs. “Exactly, yeah. We’re Team Nice Trans Dynamite.”

“Trans Nice Dynamite.”

“Trans Nice Dynamite against the world.”

Michael smiles, and Gavin’s glad to see it. Fae _does_ have a pretty smile, the kind of smile Gavin imagines people write poetry about. Which was an incredibly gay thing to think, wow. They’re truly as bad as each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick note that michael & gavin's use of 'gay' to refer to themselves is a very personal thing and is in no way indicative of all trans people, they're going to have a proper conversation about it in a later chapter, please do not use this fic as a catch-all guide to trans people as a whole.
> 
> also, if you have any suggestions for nerdy gender-neutral alternatives to 'boyfriend' you think gavin would use in reference to michael (one i saw yesterday was 'the datemeister'), please let me know!


	3. revolutionary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is a reference to something laverne cox said: “ _loving trans people, i believe, is a revolutionary act_.” alternative title for this chapter: " _ridiculous trans shenanigans_ ". 
> 
> warnings for this chapter: implied transphobia.
> 
> (this would be longer but my energy levels are in the gutter at the moment and i don't want to force myself to do unnecessary things, so i'm making this chapter short so i can focus on the next chapter.)

For some reason, Michael is expecting something to change.

Past experience, maybe. The last time he told someone, she didn’t exactly react well. He can still remember the names she called him, the look on her face-- 

Not that Gavin has ever looked at Michael like that. Michael would probably punch him. He’s gotten a lot better at punching people now. 

But, still. It’s weird, that Michael told Gavin his one biggest secret, the one thing about himself that almost no one else knows, and nothing has really changed. Gavin still looks at him the same, still talks to him the same, still treats him the exact same, and it's-- nice. New, different, kinda really fucking weird, but yeah, it's nice. Michael could definitely get used to it.

"Hey, hey, did you see the thing?”

It’s just Michael and Gavin in the office, the others having gone for lunch. Michael stayed behind to finish editing the latest Rage Quit, and Gavin stayed to… Fuck knows why Gavin stayed, actually.

Michael raises an eyebrow. “Gonna need a bit more information there, Gav. I’ve seen a lot of things.”

“Time! Time Magazine! The cover!” Gavin bounces up and down excitedly. It's annoyingly endearing.

“No?”

“Oh my god, okay, come here, come see.” He grabs Michael by the arm and pulls him over to his desk. Twitter is open on his computer, one tweet selected in particular. Michael recognises Laverne Cox’s icon immediately, but he must have missed this tweet. He reads it once, then blinks and reads it again, not quite able to believe what he’s reading.

She’s on the cover of TIME magazine. _She’s on the cover of TIME magazine_.

“ _Shit_.”

“I know right?” Gavin grins, still bouncing up and down. “Apparently the article’s kind of a piece of shit, but there’s a video interview that you have to watch, she bloody owns it, and God, I mean, it’s TIME magazine, y’know? She’s on the _cover_.”

“Is it weird that I’m proud? Of her?”

“Eh, probably. I’m proud too, though. She’s the first openly trans person to ever be on the cover, so. Big achievement.”

Michael nods. He feels almost shaken, kind of like he’s going to start to cry, and that doesn’t even feel like an over-reaction. “Can you send me the link?”

“To the video interview? Yeah, sure, gimme a sec.” Dropping down into his seat, Gavin pulls up a Twitter client Michael doesn’t recognise. “Links still work on DMs, right?”

“Yeah, you’re good.” Michael watches Gavin click around on his weird Twitter client. It has multiple columns, and what looks like multiple timelines. Michael frowns. “Dude, do you have more than one twitter account?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, I have two. The other one’s like my super-secret trans account for trans things. My name’s not on it, so.”

“Huh. That’s-- actually a pretty good idea.”

Gavin flashes a grin at him. “I know right? It was Griffon, actually. She got sick of me whining all the time about not knowing any trans people, because I love her and Geoff and all but they don’t _get it_ , y’know? So she made me another account. Told me to make some friends.”

“And did you?”

“Hey, I’m great at making friends!”

“Of course you are.” Michael says, patting Gavin’s shoulder. Gavin swats at him.

\---

They’re in the middle of recording a Let’s Play the first time.

“That’s pretty narcissistic of you.” Ryan says, raising an eyebrow at Geoff. 

“Ooo, Ryan the big words guy!” Ray calls.

Under the cover of the ensuing laughter, Gavin turns to Michael and says, “Nar _cis_ sism,” with a pleased grin on his face. Michael laughs, and then laughs harder when Gavin pulls a blue steel and makes a show of admiring his forearms. 

“You two alright over there?” 

Gavin spins his chair round to make the exact same face at Jack, who shakes his head in bemusement and says, “I’m not even going to pretend to get the joke, but okay, as long as you’re enjoying yourselves.”

They calm down and turn their attention back to GTA, and Michael mostly forgets about it, until almost forty minutes later, when there’s a lull in the conversation and Gavin leans over to whisper, “Narcissism,” in Michael’s ear, apropos of nothing.

It shouldn’t still be funny, but Michael still laughs so hard it almost hurts.

And after that, it becomes one of their more ridiculous inside jokes, and whenever one of them is in a bad mood, the other will whisper “narcissism” or pull a ridiculous Cis Man™ face, and no matter what, they’ll both be sent into fits of giggles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the video interview](http://time.com/132769/transgender-orange-is-the-new-black-laverne-cox-interview/) as mentioned in the fic.
> 
> credit to [josh](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jackwidows) for the secret second twitter accounts idea. (read josh's fic, it's amazing).

**Author's Note:**

> i am [here](http://monsterau.tumblr.com) on tumblr & this fic has a tag [here](http://monsterau.tumblr.com/tagged/fic:-team-trans-dynamite) on my tumblr.
> 
> ETA: i rly appreciate every comment this fic is getting <333 i dont have the spoons to reply to each comment individually (unless u ask a question, in which case i'll try & make the effort) but srsly, i rly rly appreciate it, thank u.
> 
> ETA again: so as u might of guessed this fic is on hiatus. i just wanted to say that i haven't given up on it. tho i've fallen out of roosterteeth a bit, i still want to finish this fic. i'm just hardcore struggling with mental health stuff rn (i've dropped out of school & have spent the last month lying in bed watching youtube videos & functioning only in the most basic sense), & it's making even things i enjoy hard. so, i do still want to write this, but it might take me ages & ages & ages, because i'm a mess. just so u know.


End file.
